Pin Drive Wheels

Staying with the period correct theme, your selection of wheels is pretty narrow. I chose Trigo wheels, now being produced by SoCal Speedshops. (They’ve purchased the line from Lynn Park)

The system uses an adapter that bolts to various bolt patterns and provides the large center thread for the knock-off.

The pins serve as a lugnut to hold the adapter on but also serve as the drive pin in the wheel. As such, their location must be pretty exact. All five need to line up just right so they will slip into the recesses in the wheel.

Trigo makes a bolt spacer template that helps in this process. While tightening the pins, the template can be slipped over the pins to check that everything lines up just right.The instructions provided to me by Mr. Park call for the pins to be torqued to 60 ft.lbs and no mention of any thread locker. If you are concerned, you might use blue Loctite. I wouldn’t recommend the use of red since the adapters may need to come off and the only way to removed the red is by heating the parts. This could damager the heat treating of the components.

Tightening the pins isn’t the easiest thing. A tool that slips over an adjoining pin makes it easier but be very careful. If it slips off, you can seriously hurt yourself
The other tools necessary are a 6lb lead hammer and safety-wire pliers. I also learned a trick of tightening the spinner using a piece of 2 x 2 Oak about 24″ long. Hitting it with the hammer and holding it to the spinner makes for an extension and keeps you from hitting the wheel.

Do your own search on which way the knock off should be mounted. It makes for a great controversy. I finally figured out the way to remember correct rotation is the knock-off should spin towards the rear of the car when being tightened.